Electronic information searching and search capabilities are an important and evolving part of computing technology. Search engines are a general class of applications that search a database for specified query parameters and return a list of documents associated with those query parameters. Search engines may also be associated with a single application. For example, computer programs often have an associated help module that allows a user to search for a help topic on that particular computer program.
One limitation common to search engines is that they are only able to search a single source. Search engines associated with a computer program may search a database associated with the help module, generally without searching any other source. To search other sources, a user has to launch another search engine to perform the search. For instance, a help module may allow a user to search a help database about an associated application with one query, but another search engine may be required to search the WWW for similar information. The user cannot search both sources at the same time from the same search engine.
Meta searchers, most commonly associated with the WWW, are not actually search engines, but rather provide a common front end for multiple search engines. Meta searchers interact directly with a native interface to each of the multiple search engines, making it impossible for other search engines to easily make their information available to the meta searcher. This limitation creates a barrier to adding additional search engines to the meta searcher.
These and other problems render existing search systems inadequate to easily make available the information stored by many search engines to a common search client.